Never Human
by Lunan
Summary: The ultimate goal of reploids was to create a human machine right? But what of a reploid that doesn't want to be human? The spirtual world is looming closer than before, and the gods have thier hands in mortal affairs more than you think. Axl/OC Zero/OC
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

An Unusual Find

Axl was not currently a happy reploid.

Well, make that a seriously pissed off reploid. He'd spent the past week tracking a trio of class C mavericks solo, no teammates, no HQ support, and few breaks. He was tired, dirty, low on ammo, and in serious need of something to beat to a gritty pulp. Sure, he was happy to get the solo assignment initially, but a week of no luck and suffering frequent low level maverick and mechanaloid attacks would wear on anyone's enthusiasm, and not to mention patience. He had taken several injuries and that cracked rib hurt a hell of a lot, but his self-healing systems dulled the pain after a while as they repaired the damage.

Stopping in the lee of a partially demolished building he checked the tracking equipment he had been given, not expecting anything to come up. Sometimes he really hated not having internal scanning equipment, getting readouts behind your eyes would be so much more convenient.

The instrument chirped, plasma residue, fresh enough to signify the damage around him was from a recent firefight. Finally some success!

"_Kyaaaa!"_

Axl jolted at the sound of the feminine scream that rang eerily through the concrete ruins. Over a hill of rubble and around three corners were the three mavericks he had been tracking, and they'd cornered a civilian!

"Go on puny human, scream for help! No one's gonna hear you!" rumbled the shortest at seven feet, waving a beam knife in the girl's terrified face.

"N-n-no! Please no!" she quailed, shrinking back from her tormentors. "Leave me alone!"

The tallest, the leader, laughed. "Aw, look at the scared little human, begging for mercy from mavericks!"

Axl tensed, ready to spring to the human's rescue, when he noticed something odd.

The 'human' girl had cat-like ears poking out from the top of her sandy orange head, and not to mention the weird outfit that looked like a short bathrobe with a really thick sash and big sleeves.

"P-please! Just leave me alone!" she cried, clutching something to her chest. "I don't want any trouble!"

"No good human," the leader growled. "Your inferior guts and blood are going to paint this alley!"

The grunt swung his knife upward, aiming to cut the girl in half, when a black, snaky, _something_ lashed out.

Once, twice, thrice.

Thud, thud, CRASH!

Axl blinked. One second the maverick was ready to kill, the next his arms fell off, then his torso separated from his lower half in a spray of purple coolant.

"What the fuck?" he asked aloud, scanning the area for any other entities, and finding none.

The girl was now standing, a long black whip in hand and breathing heavily in panic, a furry tail lashing out behind her.

The other two mavericks stood in shock, staring at their companion's dismembered corpse, before rushing the girl.

She yelled, flinging the whip through the air and decapitating the other grunt. The now headless body sprayed her with the sickly coolant, blinding her.

The leader took advantage of this, and fired his weapon.

The young hunter gasped at the gut-wrenching scream that reverberated through the decimated area, and felt something like _he _had taken that shot.

Not thinking, he lunged, transforming into a beast-like mecha shape and tackling the maverick. The maverick howled as sharp claws dug into synthflesh, ripping and tearing apart limbs and armor alike before a wild swipe to the neck cut his throat, and torrents of coolant gushed forth.

Axl snarled, lip curled in disdain, as he reverted to his normal shape, drew his gun, and fired a full power blast to the back of the maverick's skull.

Threat taken care of, Axl leapt to the girl, shaking slightly from the savagery he had inflicted.

She lay still, her body heaving with coughs. The whip was nowhere in sight, only a strange spattered trail of a black substance on the ground and a peculiar object in the girl's limp hand.

"Hey! Are you alright!" he asked, carefully turning the girl over.

His breath left him.

She was...beautiful. Delicate features, high cheekbones and angled eyes, she would've looked of Asian decent if it weren't for her sand-orange hair and near-white skin.

Oh, and let's not forget the lack of human ears on the sides of her head.

When he could breathe again, he smelled blood, blood and charred flesh. There was a black, bleeding hole in her abdomen, not very deep but life still life threatening. She stirred, and gasped in pain.

"Whoa, hey, don't move! You're hurt bad, you need to get to a hospital!" Axl cried. "Plasma burns kill humans easily!"

Her eyes opened, the pure, deep violet color unmistakable even clouded by pain.

"N-no!" she sobbed. "No hospitals!"

Axl shook her gently. "You need a doctor, and fast. If you don't get that burn treated soon you'll bleed out or die when the corrosion eats away at your organs!"

"No hospitals! No humans!" the girl almost growled. "Never humans!"

She wrenched out of his grasp and grabbed the strange object from the ground. It was a lacquered stick, with white...hair? in one end stained black at the tips. The girl took the soft end of the stick and ran it over the wound, and a slick black liquid flowed from it.

The liquid sizzled, smouldered, then burst away in a puff of dark smoke to reveal a blackened patch of skin.

"Never humans, don't trust...them..."

She looked about to faint. Axl picked her up bridal style. "Hey, don't pass out on me yet! What was that?"

Her eyes fluttered as she panted. "R-rejuvenation, second celestial brushstroke...takes too much...energy."

"Are you gonna be ok?"

"J-just n-need sleep." she whispered. "Please don't take me to the humans!"

"I won't, can you tell me your name?" he asked, hopeful.

She smiled. "Sunako, yours?"

"I'm Axl."

"Thank you...Axl." Sunako whispered, snuggling into the hunter's shoulder. "The Mother's...blessings...to...you..."

With that, she was out cold, clutching Axl's armor in an unconscious deathgrip.

Axl blushed, feeling her breath tickling his jaw. Gulping, he activated his radio for the first time in a week.

"Hunter Axl to Hunter Base, do you copy?"

'_**Axl? Is that really you?'**_came the familiar voice of Navigator Alia._** 'What's your status?'**_

"All three targets dead, one injured civilian, and I really could use a shower."

A slight pause, then a laugh._**'Trust you to crack a joke at a time like this. How badly injured is the civilian, reploid or human?'**_

"Plasma shot to her stomach, but I can't tell if she's human or reploid. Can you teleport us over now?"

A longer pause. _'To a hospital?'_

"No can do Al, definite ix-nay on the hospital. Don't think a civvy doctor could treat _this_."

'_**Copy that, we've got a lock on your signal, transporting for two...now.'**_

The world faded in a flash, the familiar tingling sensation of teleportation bringing him and his passenger to Headquarters in an instant.

The first thing that greeted him as he stepped off the platform, the 17th unit commander MegaMan X. The imposing blue-armored figure stood with his arms crossed, a finger tapping and a stern glare in his green eyes.

Axl gulped. "Hey X, nice day?"

The hunter hero studied the younger one's disheveled, purple coolant stained state and the oddly dressed female in his arms. "You couldn't take her to a hospital?"

"Um, she sort've panicked when I mentioned it."

"And you didn't insist?"

"I would've if _Sunako _hadn't been the one to take down two of my targets before she got shot! And I don't think she's human _or _reploid!"

X blinked, noticing the odd appendages on top the girl's head, one ear twitching under Axl's breath.

"Oh...that makes a difference."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Tricky Dealings

xXx

Back in Hunter HQ Axl felt he should have been able to relax a bit, but for some reason he found himself fighting Alia, X, and Lifesaver's attempts at taking the unconscious Sunako from him.

This was the scene Zero walked in on. His protege clutching a girl to him and rather violently cursing at the three trying to take her from him, X trying to calm everyone down, Alia scolding Axl, and Lifesaver attempting to tell the young reploid about his own injuries.

Zero blinked. He had never seen Axl so...protective. He tapped X on the shoulder. "Hey, what's up with Axl?"

The blue hunter sighed in exasperation. "He found the injured girl on his mission, but he won't let her go long enough to get her treated, or himself for that matter. Lifesaver says he's got some pretty serious injuries that need to be looked at."

Eying the redhead's disheveled state, Zero had to agree that Axl looked a little worse for wear.

"Need help?"

X gave him a look that said everything.

"I'll get him, you get the girl."

As one they rushed Axl, Zero pinning his arms as X took Sunako.

Axl exploded. He started screaming out curses in what had to be at least four different languages as he struggled against Zero's unbreakable grip.

The Crimson Demon was stunned at his normally cheerful subordinate's rage. "Lifesaver! Sedative!"

An instant later an injection gun was emptying into Axl's neck, and he started going limp.

"D-damn you Z-zero!"

Axl's body fell slack, breathing heavily in an attempt to cool his systems, but his eyes refused to close.

"What the hell did you hit him up with Lifesaver?" asked Zero. "Isn't he supposed to be knocked out?"

"A paralytic, we need him awake, not unconscious." responded the white and green medic as he took Sunako from X. "This behavior calls possible virus infection to question. If and when he's cleared, I'll give him an actual sedative, he's gone at least four days without sleep."

xXx

Tending Axl's injuries was...interesting.

Zero peeled back the grey and navy armor once they were sure he was clear of the Maverick Virus, but other infections were very possible. Lifesaver had to use a laser scalpel to reopen Axl's synthflesh where it had closed over his wounds, and he cried out in shock.

"What is it?" asked X, rushing over. "Is something wrong?"

The medic gaped in disbelief. "I...I knew he had regenerative systems, but this..." he started, staring at the internal damages. "This is insane! There is no way these structural damages could have repaired themselves like this!"

Indeed, under the young reploid's flesh was what should have been a severely damaged rib cage strut. Aside from some minor warping, the metal was mostly whole, only a few hairline cracks and a crinkled surface that resembled a puckered scar.

Zero took one look at it, scratched his head, and quipped. "Well, that's different."

Alia whacked him upside the head. "Idiot! This sort of thing is virtually unheard of even with Axl's unusual self-repair systems!"

"That, and it looks like a patch job." said Livesaver. "I'll need to overhaul the damaged areas as usual. Once I'm done you two need to move him to his room and keep a close watch on him, the sedative is clearing his systems a lot faster than I'm comfortable with and he will wake up in some pain."

Zero gave X a worried look as they watched the medic work his magic on their young teammate, cutting and welding around what they all knew were extremely sensitive components that criss-crossed the reploid's frame in a tighter net than seen anywhere else. No matter how careful a medic was with Axl, there was absolutely no escaping the inevitable accidental minor damages to his delicate internals. It was like a human getting surgery, he always woke from repairs in pain.

xXx

Three hours was long time for a reploid to be under sedation for repairs, but in Axl's case the extra time was necessary to avoid causing further harm. His anatomically humanlike build and unknown origins made repairs a very tricky business, having to navigate his ridiculously complicated structure that had triple the amount of sensory receptors of the average reploid.

...Funny how a young reploid with such a inhuman shape-shifting/power-stealing ability looked so convincingly human without his armor on. Zero had to keep telling himself that this was _Axl_ that he was carrying in his arms, unconscious and clad only in hospital patient garb. Hell, he even had an IV inserted in his arm to help replenish the fluids he had lost over the week and bandages wrapped around him to protect the wounded areas Lifesaver 'stitched' back together.

Alia had gone on ahead to Axl's room to find the teen something more comfortable to sleep in, Axl always raised a huge fuss if he ever woke up in the infirmary or wearing anything other than his own clothes. While normal policy was to restrain injured or ill reploids to medical facilities, Axl made an exception for his sheer paranoid, destructive fear of said facilities. X and Alia theorized that it was from trauma, Zero said it was just the kid being a brat...

But what Zero thought on the other hand was different, but hey, he had a reputation to hold up.

Zero arrived at Axl's door and handed the teen to a waiting Alia, then hustled off to his own quarters to get changed out of his armor.

-Now, a reploid could only teleport their armor by conscious command, but when a hunter had the time it was better to remove or don it manually and arrange the pieces properly. Sometimes teleporting into your armor left you with some uncomfortable fits, things that you just couldn't adjust with any dignity.

No way in hell did Zero ever allow _that_. So he religiously arranged his armor himself onto it's storage forms every time to prevent those awkward pinches.-

Armor off and now comfortably clad in a loose red tank top and grey sweatpants he padded back to Axl's room in his socks.

Alia already had Axl tucked into his bed and hooked into the unobtrusive monitoring devices kept stashed in the room. He looked pale against his black sheets, red hair splayed around his head like molten copper and cross scar half hidden by his bangs.

He just looked so...fragile.

"Want me to take watch?" Alia asked, brushing her fingers through the redhead's bangs tenderly.

"Nah, I got this. Why don't you go help with that girl Axl brought in? You've got better people skills than me." said Zero. "I've got a databook to finish."

With that, she left and Zero plunked himself down in the armchair next to bed, fishing out the aforementioned databook from a small bookcase mostly filled with comics and fantasy adventure titles.

"Now where was I?"

The Crimson Hunter let himself become absorbed in the gripping suspense thriller he'd been introduced to by Layer, his navigator, while keeping an ear open for any sudden noise from his charge.

Three and a half chapters later he was still stumped on who the killer was in the story, but Axl stirred.

Closing his book he moved to sit on the edge of the bed. "Hey kiddo, you awake?"

The redhead grimaced, opening one bleary eye to see his senior's face, then shut it with a pained groan.

"You ok?"

Axl tried to sit up, but fell back with a cry of pain, the vital monitors shrieking at the distress the motion put on his damaged systems as his body trembled.

Zero, in an uncharacteristic softness, gently pulled the now tearing teen into his lap, rubbing the top of his head like one scratches the ears of a cat. Axl fell limp, burying his face in Zero's shirt.

"Had another dream kiddo?"

Axl only whimpered.

"Shh, you're alright. Just remember where you are now, you're safe."

This was a regular occurrence for Axl, one that X had no clue about. If the blue bomber knew that the younger hunter had night terrors, he'd have even more reason to claim Axl was unfit to be a hunter.

-Now, nightmares are bad dreams right? Well night terrors are several times worse. Dreams so vivid and intensely terrifying that the dreamer literally screams in their sleep, and often wakes screaming.

Night terrors are most often found in young human children, and usually they grow out of it. After all, children have vivid imaginations that can make their worlds exaggeratedly scarier.

In reploids however, it's a different story. There was no documented case of a reploid suffering from night terrors, ever.-

Zero first learned about the problem the first week after their defeat of Red Alert and Sigma, when a frantic, tearful Axl came into his room and clung to him, crying. This unfortunately turned out to be a semi-nightly routine, Axl seeking comfort from the only person on base he could trust like the child he essentially was at a level.

The blonde was confused at first, but came to care for the younger hunter like a little brother. He researched all he could find about reploid dreams, night terrors, post traumatic stress, and Axl's life in Red Alert. The first three items were mostly theories and inconclusive studies on reploid psychology, but Axl's past turned out to be more convoluted than expected.

Who would've guessed that the Copy Reploid has actually been active for the better part of two decades?

Seventeen years of activation with a civilian human scientist according to Red's personal logs (that took Zero weeks to find and decode) that was killed in a maverick attack. Said scientist's work had been fortunately seized by the Maverick Hunters but were heavily encrypted, so Zero was still working on those. Red's logs also stated that Axl was subjected to numerous painful tests by one of his own men before accidental cerebral trauma left him suffering memory damage. For the youngster's health, Red asked an independent medic to do what he could, but all memory was either lost, or locked, so the boy reverted to the mentality of a child.

For three years Red kept Axl as his protege, until his involvement with Sigma's manipulation. An inconspicuous analysis by Lifesaver on the boy's cranial structure revealed evidence of old, partially healed damage to his memory cortex, damage that surmised to a rare case of reploid retrograde amnesia. Any and all attempts to retrieve the locked memory data was met with failure, whatever Axl experienced, it was gone for good.-

By now Axl had calmed down, his head on Zero's lap as he read aloud from a databook of myths and legends. The current one was a story from old Japan, about the legend of the rabbit in the moon, making mochi treats for new years celebrations.

Zero remembered trying the stuff once at Axl's insistence, and personally found it too sticky and chewy for his tastes, but Axl loved it with any kind of filling possible, strawberry custard in particular.

A sound at the door caused Zero to pause in his reading and look up, seeing Alia and X enter the room.

"How is he?" asked Alia.

"Drowsy," said Zero. "Don't think he can focus too well."

Alia smiled at the scene, at Zero's gentleness with the redhead, a hand threading through copper hair soothingly.

"Is it alright for me to take a look at him?"

"Be careful."

As the navigator examined Axl, X stood at a short distance, staring Zero down.

"You realize that you're coddling him?" X asked dully. "He won't make a good hunter like this."

Zero scoffed. "You're the one coddling him, in reverse. I'm just trying to be supportive, he's young, and he's been through a hell of a lot more than you in your first twenty years in his first _three_."

"You're getting attached to a child that isn't going to live through the next year."

"Screw you X, he'll pull through." Zero bit out. "You're mad because he accepts the need to fight and you don't. You're my friend, but you're seriously getting on my nerves."

X twitched. "He's a fragile child, repairing injuries causes more damage than the wound itself."

"Cause his self repair systems fix things most of the way before he gets treatment. Face it X, with a good teacher and a little more experience he'll make the best damn hunter we've got! Maybe with a little espionage training he'll be a great infiltrations expert."

"And send him into the most dangerous places alone? Are you insane?"

"I was thinking aloud X." Zero drawled, annoyed. "So how's the girl?"

"Sunako?" asked Alia. "She's fine, but that burn healed unusually fast. I'm thinking she might be genetically spliced."

Zero perked up. "Isn't gene splicing humans illegal?"

"Extremely."

"So where is she now?"

"Fourteenth wing, civilian quarters." said Alia. "They're human-level facilities, she should be fine. And Axl is doing well, he should be fully healed and back on his feet the day after tomorrow."

"That's good." Zero sighed. "Hey kiddo, want me to finish the story and then let you sleep?"

Axl made a small noise of affirmation and snuggled a little deeper into the blankets, eyes still closed.

If X could've blushed, he'd be cherry-red. "Do you mean he was awake this whole time?" he gulped, embarrassed.

Zero and Alia shared a grin. "Yep."

Axl gave a muffled snicker. "Open mouth, insert foot."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

Midnight meeting.

Axl slept through most of the next thirty hours, Zero and Alia visiting now and then to check on him as he healed. Now, close to one in the morning, he dozed fitfully despite having the uncomfortable medical equipment removed.

Tossing and turning in his twisted sheets, body overheated and limbs crawling with a pins and needles sensation, he tried in vain to return to sleep and banish the feeling that he was forgetting something important. He never noticed the sound of his door opening, or that of feet padding across the carpet until he felt a cool hand on his shoulder.

Axl sat bolt upright in shock, startling the person kneeling next to him on his bed.

It was Sunako.

In the moonlight coming from the unshuttered windows she looked almost ethereal, skin a glowing white and hair shining pale gold. She was wearing a short, silky nightgown in a shade of purple that made the violet of her eyes all the more prominent.

It was those eyes that made Axl remember what had happened with a jolt of guilt, he had forgotten all about her!

"S-suanko...w-why are you...?" he knew he didn't have to ask, but seeing this girl in a nightdress that showed a lot of leg and far more cleavage then he was used to or comfortable with on his bed made him stutter, blushing. Sometimes he cursed being so anatomically close to humans, at least other reploids couldn't blush when embarrassed!

The girl said nothing, only locking her violet gaze to Axl's green, then snaked her arms around his shoulders in an embrace.

"W-w-what the...?"

"_You were crying_." she whispered in his ear. "_I heard you..._"

"That's impossible, the fourteenth wing is on the other side of the base."

He felt moisture on his shoulder.

"Are...are you crying?" he asked, putting a hand on her back.

"_I was scared, so many human scents, too many people."_

It hit him like a bullet. She was scared of humans.

"Why?" he dared to ask, and yelped as he was knocked onto his back.

Sunako had shoved him over, and snuggled up to his side resting her head on his chest. _"You're warm."_

He giggled nervously. "Uh, yeah, I try to stay that way..."

She shivered, the animal ears that had lain hidden against her head now quavering slightly, and the fluffy tail was tickling Axl's bare knees.

"_Let me stay with you?"_ she asked, voice full of a fear he recognized all too well, like a child woken from a nightmare.

His metaphorical heart all about melted. "No problem, but I am warning you, I talk in my sleep."

"_Arigatogozaimasu Axl-kun."_

"Hold the phone...is that old Japanese?"

"_Hai."_

He blinked. Odd, he'd knew a good amount of the old Japanese language but was not exactly fluent, and yet he understood Sunako with no problems.

"The Mother's graces Axl, I asked her to give you her blessings." she now said in standard. "She must have heard me."

"The...Mother?"

She smiled. "Our ever loving guide and guardian, _Hahu-e Amaterasu-sama, _the great goddess of the sun and mother of all life."

"Ama...te...rasu?"

"Do you believe in the gods?"

Axl frowned. Most reploids disregarded the possible existence of a god, and he himself never thought about it before. Even X considered himself Atheist.

"The gods are real Axl." Sunako murmured, nuzzling his neck. "I would know, Amaterasu-sama was my master."

"Excuse me?" Axl squeaked.

"I wasn't born on Earth, not being human or reploid."

"Then what does that make you?" he asked, trying desperately to keep his voice even. He was _not _used to this kind of contact.

"There is a plane of existence called the Celestial Realm, where most of the mythical beings of the human's legends live. It's like a floating island with no end to the land, the only ways to get to the human's world is either by portals or accident."

"And?"

"I tripped."

"Tripped...?"

Sunako buried her face deeper into his hair. "Yes." she muttered. "Tripped into the deepest canyon in the Realm, fell through the barrier."

"Sounds...painful."

"Embarrassing's more like it." she huffed. "Goes with the bad luck of being the ninth child of a Kitsune."

Axl was puzzled by the statement. He knew there was something numbers the Pre-Light era Asia had conceptions about, but for the life of him he couldn't place it.

"Nine is commonly thought to be a very unlucky number, as the word for nine, Kyuu, is the same spoken word as 'misfortune'. To be the ninth child, especially of a nine-tailed kitsune, usually means you're very unlucky." Sunako told him bitterly. "Even worse that both my mother and father are Kyuubi, nine tailed kitsune. I never got the family talent with plants, fell into the human plane only a day after I finished my apprenticeship, _then _got caught by human scientists. I've been running from them ever since."

"Is that why...you said not to bring you to a hospital?"

"Yes."

"Was it really that bad?"

Silence.

"Sunako?" Axl queried, nudging her.

"I...I don't want to talk about it right now." she whispered, shaking.

"Ok, I understand. Just try to sleep."

"_Domo."_

Axl smiled.

"_Doitachimashite Sunako-chan."_

The redhead had the satisfaction of feeling the fox girl stiffen in surprise before settling in closer to sleep.

-xXx

Language notes

arigatogozaimasu- formal thank you

domo- informal thank you

doitachimashite- you're welcome


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

Segways

The next few weeks were fairly uneventful, Axl was back on active duty with Zero's unit and Sunako was kept in Alia's company in the Navigator's control room whenever the hunters were out. The fox girl was well accepted in headquarters by all the reploids she met, even earning Commander Signas' affection with her gently playful personality, but she steered clear of any and all human personnel. No one noticed this save the few human researchers who wanted a closer look at her, but no one paid any attention to their complaints.

Sunako came to Axl's room every night, refusing to sleep in her quarters in sector fourteen. The redhead slowly became accustomed to her presence, and that her warm and comforting weight at his side kept away his nightmares, replaced with dreams of the stories and legends she shared with him from her home.

-xXx

Axl had made of point of replacing the kitsune girl's ruined robe by getting her several bolts of new fabric and other supplies with his generous salary to do with as she pleased, and wound up getting pleasantly surprised.

Axl and Zero wandered into rec room four after a long morning of training to find Alia, Pallet, Layer, Sunako, and a bunch of other female reploids taking over the space in a mess of what looked like a rainbow exploded. Fabric and half-finished garments of every possible color were hanging or placed in every available space, more than half the women being fitted for clothes and the others working various stages of sewing, cutting, pinning, or laying patterns.

"What the hell is going on here?" asked Zero.

Nearly all activity stopped. Each woman present shared the same, thoughtful, then scheming look, before five of them jumped on the blonde hunter.

In seconds Zero found himself armorless and tied up in nothing but the lower half of his black undersuit.

"What the?"

Axl cracked up laughing at the dazed expression on his friend's face. "Ha, the invincible Zero gets captured by a bunch of seamstresses!"

"What's that supposed to mean you brat?"

"That you're the resident pretty boy and we can't resist the chance to dress you up." said Alia from the middle of the room. "Personally I've always wanted to see what you looked like in something other than red."

"Well," Axl laughed, "have fun ladies."

"Oh no you don't!" barked a female hunter as she grabbed him. "Sunako has dibs on you cutie."

"C-cutie!"

It was Zero's turn to laugh as Axl joined him in a similar state, tied up and half naked.

"Oh shut up." growled the redhead.

"Irony at it's best kid."

Hours passed in a whirlwind of color, and the two boys actually found they were enjoying themselves as the women fussed over them. Zero's hair was brushed and re-brushed till it shone, tied into different styles of ponytails, and treated with products so it was silky soft. Axl's own copper hair was washed, trimmed, and his bangs restyled into a new punk look once the girls found out that his hair actually _grew _like a human's.

With their compulsion towards their hair taken care of it was on to clothes. It turned out that Alia had taken their measurements from their medical records and the slew of women had already produced a multitude of garments to try on them.

Zero was in the middle of being fitted in a sexy black tux when X walked in.

"What in the world is going on here?"

Zero looked up at his oldest friend, and smirked. "I'm enjoying the attention, for one." he said, smug. "Can't help it if the ladies like my stunning good looks."

"Then was this mess your idea?"

Alia laughed from where she was pinning a seam on Zero's side. "Far from it, if you're going to blame someone, blame Axl."

"Hey!"

Said redhead was currently being re-dressed into a pair of low-riding skinny jeans and a half top that showed his toned midsection. "Don't pin this on me!"

A huntress working on him giggled. "Aw, don't be like that Axl. You did start it when you bought Sunako all that fabric." she said, giving him a small smack on his backside. "You do make a pretty sexy pretty boy out of that armor though."

All the women burst into giggles when Axl blushed to his ears.

X was not amused. "So you are responsible." he said, arms crossed.

"Am not! I just wanted to replace her dress, I couldn't find anything like it in stores!"

"Lighten up X." quipped Zero. "At least it's constructive."

"You men blow things up to relieve stress, we do clothes." said Alia. "And you're certainly not exempt from this, get him ladies!"

And so the blue bomber was lassoed and stripped just like the two before. But unlike Axl and Zero, X was body shy.

And the navigators took dozens of pictures.

"You know ladies," said Zero, studying a gown one of the women was fitting on a manikin, "you could start your own fashion line, Hunter Chic maybe?"

Most of them paused, shared a thoughtful look, and smiled.

"You know, we'd never thought about it." said Layer. "Sunako just asked us if we were interested in designing some clothes for ourselves."

Sunako herself was sewing the sleeve on a long robe that most of the others could not fathom the purpose for. It was a soft violet, patterned with golden flowers and a pale red ripple design, a contrast to another finished one that hung on a pole through the sleeves to keep it flat. That one was shorter and mostly blue and green with a geometric pattern of bamboo in black in white and not nearly as glossy as the more feminine one she was working on.

She looked up from her work, snipping the tied off thread with her sharp fingernails and tucking the needle in a pincushion. "You say something?"

"Fashion line, you interested?" said Layer.

Sunako hummed to herself, ears flat on her head. "I don't know, but it sounds kind of fun." she said. "Can you bring Axl over? I've got something to try on him."

Several women squealed, this was the first time Sunako had put any clothing on a person, so none of them knew how the beautiful robes were supposed to fit.

Sunako pulled the green robe down from it's hanger and took out several sashes and cords of varying colors, then what looked like a large navy pleated skirt and another robe, this one grey with a red smoke pattern.

Axl tried to resist, he didn't fancy being put in a dress, but the combined forces of the collected women was too much for him.

Sunako first draped the grey on him, folded it closed and tied it with a thin sash. Then she put on the green one and tied it as well. Both had those big sleeves, but they nestled together one inside the other very well. She put a decorative black piece over it that made the shoulders look sharper and covered the back, then she put him in the skirt, which had a wide split on the hips and long ties on both front and back. She tied the back ones first around his front, then the longer front ones around his back then in a knot in front. She stepped back and let everyone see the finished look.

"Holy...he looks like a samurai!" gaped Zero.

Indeed, Axl looked like a samurai with his hair in a high ponytail, the layered robes and the skirt-like pants. All he was missing were the stilted wooden sandals and a sword to complete the look.

"Hmm, looks good enough, how does it feel?" Sunako asked.

Axl blinked, looked himself over, and was surprised at how comfortable the ensemble was.

"It's...comfy." he said. "Warm, but kinda breezy."

"Damn, can I get one of those?" asked Zero.

Sunako laughed. "Later maybe, I need to finish my formal one first." she said, waving to the flowered robe. "Formal kimono need to have layers, all of them detailed and different. A woman's requires at least two, not counting the lining yukata underneath, young unmarried girls get the furosode formal with the ankle length sleeves, men and married women only hip length. The one Axl is wearing is an upper class everyday ensemble, lighter fabrics and no embroidery."

"I like it, but what makes men's formal?" asked Alia. "Is there a difference?"

"In cut, not really, it's the quality that makes a kimono formal."

"Then what about those other robes you made first?"

"My everyday wardrobe, knee length."

Axl grinned. "You mean like the one that got ruined? You gonna show us?"

"Sure, I'll wear it to dinner, we've been here for hours."

-xXx

Thirty minutes later the group was in the entrance hall, everyone wearing a new outfit. Zero was proudly wearing slim-leg jeans and a dark green jacket over a charcoal muscle shirt, X sheepishly in a pale yellow vest jacket over a grey skintight turtleneck and straight leg slacks, and Axl in a punk-goth baggy jeans with chains and a sleeveless tight high neck top. The navigators each wearing their own version of something trendy and flattering, Sunako in her short kimono and a wide sash belted in the middle with a thinner sash, a wide headband across her ears.

All the other HQ personnel in the room stopped what they were doing to stare at the legendary hunters X and Zero, most having never seen either in anything but their signature armors. Zero was reveling in the attention, X tried to run away.

"C'mon X, loosen up." scolded Alia, yanking on his vest collar to prevent his escape. "You do owe me a dinner date, remember?"

X hung his head. "Yes ma'am"

Axl laughed. "Aw man X has she got you whipped!"

Zero chuckled. "You don't know the half of it kid."

Sunako and the other girls giggled.

"So, where are we going?" asked Layer, playing with a strand of her purple hair. "The rest of us going as a group?"

"Same place X and Alia are going, just to play bailiff if he tries to make a break for it."

Pallet laughed. "Sounds like a plan, operation Date Security."

Alia, who was listening, agreed. "Thank you, how about that new steakhouse downtown sound?"

"Awesome, I'm driving." said Zero.

"Shotgun with Zero!" quipped Axl.

"Driving second car." said Layer.

"Shotgun!" said Pallet.

-xXx

The restaurant was busy, but the manager was ecstatic to find that the heros of the Red Alert Maverick uprising were all in _his _restaurant.

X and Alia were quickly put at a booth for two, the rest only had to wait a short time to be seated at a larger table a respectable distance away from the couple, but still visible to one another.

The group of five had prime seats to watch the vid-screens of the sports broadcastings, but paid little attention as Sunako got them into a discussion about a possible fashion line when she pulled out a sketchpad and a pencil.

"How about a hunter's armor theme line?" asked Axl. "You know, clothes that look like famous reploid's armor?"

"Color-wise or structure-wise?"

"Bit of both maybe."

Zero made a face. "I don't think I'd like a bunch of people walking around dressing like me."

"It's just a thought Z."

Sunako scribbled down that note. "How about hunter's signature lines? Hero approved?"

Axl and Zero shared a look. "Now that, I kinda like the sound of."

The conversation went on this line for a good while, all through the appetizers and entrees, but during dessert the topic changed.

"So Sunako," started Layer. "How do you manage to get out of the fourteenth sector every night? Every morning I see you coming out from the third."

Sunako's furry ears, which earlier had been laying flat disguised by her hair and headband, shot straight up before she forcibly smoothed them down again. The third sector was where Unit 00 lodged, meaning Axl's room.

Axl himself desperately fought down a blush.

"I mean, seriously, how do you get to the other side of base without tripping any alarms or anyone seeing you?"

Zero looked up from his slice of chocolate cake. "You know, it's been bugging me too, how do you do it? I mean, the other day I saw you coming out of _Axl's _room." he teased, smirking.

Axl lost the fight with the blush.

Pallet squealed. "Oooh, busted!"

"Nothing happened." he bit out. "She just comes over in the mornings."

True, Sunako technically _did _come in the morning, never a minute before midnight.

Zero snorted. "Yeah right, real early."

Sunako sniffed. "I can't help it if I wake before dawn, it's an old habit."

Layer leered conspiritaly . "Then what do you do with Axl in the mornings when the rest of us are sleeping?"

"Layer! It's not like you think!"

Pallet started giggling uncontrollably. "Sounds like you've got something to hide lover boy." she said, poking him in the nose.

"N-no! It's not like that!"

The others continued to tease them as Axl's face got redder and Sunako own cheeks turned pink at the implications.

Axl ended it by flinging a spoonful of his ice cream into Zero's face.

"Hey!"

"You asked for it!"

"I did not!"

"Then stop teasing us!"

"But it's so easy."

"You too Layer!"

"You're no fun like that you know."

"That's because nothing happened! We just talk, ok!"

"About what?" asked Pallet.

"Just swapping stories, you know, nothing serious."

Pallet's face fell, disappointed. "Aw man! I thought you two were together! You make such a cute couple!"

Sunako almost choked on her tea at that comment.

Layer helpfully patted the girl on the back. "Hey now, it's not that for fetched you know, half the base is talking about how Axl's finally found a girlfriend and how cute she is."

"Axl's not my boyfriend." she sputtered, gasping.

"He isn't?" asked Zero.

"No. And I won't have one until I have my father's blessing." she said after clearing her throat.

Zero, Pallet, and Layer all raised an eyebrow in the same questioning expression.

"Sunako...do even know where your father _is_?" asked Layer, concerned.

Sunako looked up. "I know where he is, it's just a matter of not being able to get to him. I'll figure out how to get a message to him eventually, I've got plenty of time."

"Honey, you're eighteen, not exactly a baby you know."

"Layer, I'm eighty-seven, not eighteen."

Zero made a genuine spit-take at Sunako's blunt statement, spraying Axl with soda. "WHAT!"

"You heard me, eighty-seven." the fox girl snickered. "We all know I'm not human, my kind live about five to nine hundred years on average, ten years to a human is roughly one or two years to a celestial, but that variable changes."

The three were stunned. "Axl, did you know this?"

Axl made a face at Zero, throwing a damp napkin at him. "Of course I did, she told me like...three weeks ago."

"Damn, and I thought I was old."

Suanko laughed. "And you're doing very well for two hundred and sixty years old, counting your sleeping time underground that is."

Zero scoffed. "You're older than I've been active and conscious missy! Twice over even!"

"Which makes my point that I have plenty of time to get back in touch with my family. My equivalent age is roughly to eighteen human years, almost nineteen, so I have the better part of two centuries before the pressure is on for me to find a mate. No sense in rushing."

"But what about Axl?" asked Pallet, concerned.

"Reploids don't age remember? He'll only start looking older if he wants to, and I've told him as much as I know on my family's courting traditions."

"We're just friends guys, and I'm a little young, remember? X makes that point often enough right?"

With that, the subject was closed. Zero took the check, paying with his massive and mostly untouched bank account. Forty-some-odd years as a high-class hunter paid very well.

-xXx


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

Twice Captured, Thrice Free

The rest of the week was fairly uneventful, the women making more clothes (with Axl and Zero occasionally brought in to be their male models), maverick attacks fairly sparse, and a general feeling of peaceful normalcy all around.

Axl and Sunako, now aware of the rumors about them, couldn't help but hear all the whispered murmurs of 'just how cute they are' as a couple.

It made Axl want to shoot things until he could stop blushing in embarrassment, some of the things people thought happened behind closed doors had simply never crossed his mind.

He did _not_ think himself to be a sex fiend.

Hell, he was still a virgin!

When he told Sunako these rumors she was first shocked, then embarrassed, then livid. The main perpetrators of the rumors soon found themselves at the end of several inexplicable traps, all of them humiliating in some manner.

X had commented on the last commander's meeting, how several officers walked in late, with their armor gaudily re-colored with signs saying things along the line of 'kick me' and painted boot-prints on their backsides. None of them could explain how it happened, only that one moment it was fine, the next everyone laughing at them and pointing.

Zero, though present at that meeting, didn't comment when X brought it up.

He was laughing too hard.

One afternoon X called a small meeting, summoning Zero, Alia, Pallet, and Layer to his office.

"X, what's the matter?" asked Zero, wrestling with a comb through a snarled knot in his hair. "I was kinda busy you know."

"Your after training grooming can wait Zero." said X. "I think this a little more important."

"So what is it?" asked Pallet. "Is it serious?"

"I would think so."

He tossed them each a data pad. "I've come across some rather disturbing information concerning Miss Suanko, inquiries about her whereabouts from a genetics research firm called Second Aperture Genetics Corp." he said, starting to pace. "They had wind of our research for possible animal-human gene splicing projects, and they claim they had a living, humanlike creature with animal ears and a tail, female, that escaped some four and a half years ago."

Zero dropped the data pad. "What? Escaped?"

"Yes. They claim the subject is highly dangerous, with feral tenancies and a penchant for scratching people with what are described to be razor sharp fingernails. They say that the subject killed a scientist when it escaped. It is supposed to be of animal intelligence, incapable of speech, and does not understand spoken command."

"Sounds like a bunch of bullshit to me." sniffed Layer, reading the data at record speeds. "If they had Sunako at some point, there's no way she'd play a dumb animal for those clowns, she's too old."

"So she says." barked X. "There is no way to prove her proclaimed age when she resembles a human in late adolescence. Axl may either be an accomplice in stealing a valuable research product, or sheltering a kidnaped victim from her captors!"

"So what do we do X?"

The veteran sighed. "Exactly what I don't want to do. Miss Sunako only seems to confide in Axl, and he refused to tell me anything when I tried to ask him perfectly innocent questions about her."

"So?"

"The part I don't like appears to be our only option, we have to bug Axl's room." X groaned, sinking into his chair. "I have confirmed that Suanko spends the nights in Axl's quarters, doing what, I don't want to know."

Zero chucked the data pad at his friend's head, hitting it and knocking X out of his seat.

"Idiot." he growled. "Axl's a good kid! He might tell some small half truths, but he doesn't lie about anything as serious as this! And he's not a pervert X, if he says nothing happens, then nothing happens, the kid is real big on respecting a girl's space."

X looked up from his position on the floor. "How would you know this?"

"Because I talk to him on a regular basis you bonehead! That, and when he found a rookie's porn stash, he set fire to it before you could say 'maverick'."

Alia and the girls silently applauded the young hunter.

"If you won't trust Axl, then trust _me._ When they're ready to talk, they will, so leave it alone."

Ironically, not even Axl knew that particular story yet.

But...he was about to find out.

That evening Axl was getting ready for bed early, having suffered a double training session with both the special team of unit zero and the rookie team. He was tired, sore, and sweaty beyond belief. His teammates never wanted him around after a heavy training session, them not having the ability to sweat.

Personally, Axl felt kind of sorry for them. Most other reploids couldn't feel when they were getting worn down if they were not paying attention, not having the ability to feel either strain or fatigue. They either worked too hard or not hard enough.

The ones that worked too hard burned out faster, the didn't do enough ones got killed in the field sooner.

He stripped off his armor and undersuit and stepped into the shower, letting the pounding hot water rinse away some of the aches and soreness.

He was in the middle of shampooing his hair when he felt something cool brush up his side and over his stomach.

"Suanko!"

Sure enough, it was the fox girl, dressed only in purple, lacy lingerie, her hair and tail already drenched.

Her smile was practically wicked as she let Axl take in her scantily-clad form and dripping wet skin. Her bra and panties were only just fractionally on the side of conservative for such skimpy, lacy, half see through underwear. With a wicked little smile she traced her fingertips up the side of her thigh, watching his wide-eyed reaction.

She had his every attention and she knew it.

Without a word she ran her fingers through his soapy hair seductively, trailing them around his neck and down his front, tracing every curve of muscle ever so slowly with feather light caresses.

Axl stiffened. He had never been touched like this before, so...sensuously.

"You seem...tense." Sunako purred in his ear. "Why don't you let me pamper you a little?"

She didn't give him the chance to reply before she nibbled the edge of his ear and ran her tongue up along his neck, making him gasp.

The sensation caused every nervous fiber in his being to fire, every square inch of his super-dense sensory network active and overcharged.

'Is this what it's like to be aroused?' he thought, reeling. All of the sensory information was beginning to overwhelm him, drowning the world out in a haze of pleasurable feeling.

Sunako's dainty hands continued to run along his scalp, easing out tangles from his hair as the shower spray rinsed away the suds, nuzzling his neck with little nips every now and then.

"_Feel good Axl?"_ she asked him in _nihongo_, letting her tail tickle his thighs. _"Do you like this?"_

Axl moaned, the sound of her native tongue purred so seductively sent him even further over the edge, unable to form words to respond.

"_I will take that as a 'yes'."_

She moved her hands from his head to soap up a washcloth, and began running it slowly across his now shaking body. Every muscle she passed over quivered at her touch, and Axl moaned in pleasure.

All too soon it was over, and Sunako was toweling him off then leading him to lay naked on his bed.

Axl groaned as his hot skin came into contact with the cool sheets, and gasped when Sunako sat straddled on his lap, perfectly dry.

"Oh gods Sunako, what are you doing?" he asked, dazed. This treatment was blowing all intelligent thought from his head, replacing it with hot pleasuring tingles.

She teased her fingertips along his abs, giggling. "You smelled _so_ good coming out from that training, so...musky, that I couldn't resist." she purred. "I may not be able to court you without father's blessing, but I can most certainly give you some..._special_ treatment."

"W-what do you mean by special?" he dared to ask, gasping and writhing at each feather-tip touch.

"A little kitsune special attention my hunter. Not even a lord's daughter is exempt from our cycling times of amour."

"Cycling..."

Axl's already warm face got unbearably hot as he blushed harder than he ever had in his life.

Sunako was in the kitsune's version of heat.

"_Relax, my hunter."_ she whispered. _"I am in full control, just allow me to tend to you as I would my lover."_

Any conscious thought fled his mind as she lay her hands on him again, covered now with a warm and fragrant oil as she began to massage him. She smoothed her hands up and down his chest, teasing out the tenseness in each muscle and tracing the lines of his abs.

"_See, just a little special attention."_

He didn't hear her, his mind overwhelmed by the overpowering sensations she caused, by the sweet scents that made his head spin.

Wait...what was that other smell? The oil smelled like lavender, with a hint of something spicy like...myrrh maybe? Whatever it was, it didn't disguise the other scents, one was sweet in a way defied description.

Hold up, was that scent...pheromones?

That was it, he was smelling Sunako's pheromones, and that muskier scent had to be his...

Weird, he produced pheromones?

Over time as she continued massaging him Sunako's scent intensified to the point it was driving him insane. His rising pleasure must have been affecting her too.

He finally snapped.

With a single, powerful twist and no warning to Sunako he flipped them both over, tossing her onto her back and pinning her down by the wrists. He hovered over her, breathing in her scent, mouth open and nuzzling her neck like she did his earlier.

Screw the fact he was only four years old, that he was too young to have these kind of feelings, this kitsune girl was _his _damn it!

He claimed her lips in one swoop.

She squeaked in surprise, but relaxed and deepened the kiss, moaning. For a first time, Axl was a very intense kisser, already delving his tongue into her mouth to play with hers, feeling her sharp teeth, and all but stealing her breath from her lungs.

They came apart with a gasp for breath, staring into each other's eyes, transfixed.

"_You do know I'm a lot older than you right?"_ she asked, breathless, her heaving breasts barely contained by her scanty top.

"_Who knows?"_ he shot back playfully. _"Maybe I lost my memory and am older than you in the equivalent?"_

She grinned ferally. _"You're right, it's possible." _she said, kissing him again.

Axl broke the kiss. _"This mean you'll accept me as a suitor when you get your father's blessing?"_

"_Undoubtably."_

The pair eventually calmed down and fell asleep together.

Axl woke first some time around four in the morning, spooned against Sunako's back with an arm around her slight frame. He breathed in her soft scent, content to revel in the warmth her presence brought.

She stirred, "Mm, Axl?"

"Yeah?"

"That tickles."

He chuckled, making her giggle, but it was short lived.

"Hey, what's wrong?" he asked, holding her tighter.

She sighed. "It's...nothing really, I just feel like something's coming that I'm not going to like."

Axl knew that feeling, the forboding feeling in your gut that made you feel uneasy, premonitions of trouble to come. He'd felt it when Red asked for his DNA Data, when he ran from RedAlert, and all during the RedAlert Uprising.

He was getting that feeling now too.

He got out of bed and threw on his bathrobe before sitting back down in his oversized armchair.

"Come here," he said, beckoning.

She joined him in a heartbeat, half curled on his lap.

"So," Axl started, stroking her hair, "can you tell me what's bothering you? Is it about the labs?"

"...yes."

"What happened?"

He didn't want to ask, but he had a feeling that he needed to know, and he knew to trust his hunches.

He never thought he'd be playing Zero's usual role though.

"It's ok Suanko, you're safe with me, nothing can hurt you here."

She took a shuddering breath, then began.

"I...I was on my way back home from Amaterasu's palace when I was attacked by a lost manticore, a kind of monster from the Greece/Rome area. I was close to the Gate Chasm, the deepest canyon in the eastern side of the realm, and I got cornered."

"How'd you get away?"

"I used my brushstrokes to try driving it away, but it just got mad and lunged at me."

"So...you tripped trying to dodge it."

"Right, I fell into the Chasm. If you fall hard enough and fast enough, and have the internal magic for it, you don't hit the bottom of the gorge and fall straight into the mortal realm instead."

"Where did you end up? Were you hurt?"

"I wasn't hurt, breaking the barrier takes out a lot of momentum, so I landed only hard enough to knock myself out."

"But where did you land?"

"Somewhere along where the Great Wall of China used to be."

"In China?"

"Yeah. I was fine for a while, and I didn't meet anyone, but once I crossed into Beijing I was caught. The men that took me threw me in a cell in a underground facility, a cage."

"..."

"It was dark, and it smelled so bad, blood smells _saturated_ everything. There were human women there, all in cages, only three still had clothes and half of them were only teenagers, six of them were pregnant.

"I didn't know then, since I couldn't understand, but they were all kidnaped, experimented on, tortured, and raped."

"!"

"I managed to escape in under a couple days before they could do anything to me. They tried to put a computer chip in my leg, but I dug it out. They tried to tattoo a serial number on me, and I scratched it off. The last thing they tried was branding me, but I knocked the man out when he came in without backup. I managed to get out using my brush, and one woman handed me an eight year old that the men snagged a day after they caught me. It took me a few days to find a town, the girl slowed me down a lot, but she seemed to like me, always talking to me.

"What...what happened to the girl?"

"I have no idea, but I painted a cherry blossom on her arm before I left her with some civilian reploids, she should be about fifteen or sixteen by now I think."

"What happened after that?"

"I wandered around, learning standard language and trying to stay hidden. The bastards caught me two years later, in Japan, while I was trying to find a way back home.

"When they threw me in a cage again, I could understand the other women and girls. They told me the men were genetic scientists, and only used female test subjects, how they used them for their sick pleasures and then used the children conceived by the rapes for experiments. The babies rarely survived, and the ones that did usually died in weeks."

"Those psychos! How did you get out that time?"

"My brush again. I managed to master this one technique that slows down time around you while on the run, and the women told me all kinds of things about how things worked. I learned the name of the company, several researcher's names, how the locks worked, and how to get the police's attention. I escaped, but..."

"But what?"

"I...I killed a man getting out."

"Why?"

"We met on the staircase, he was carrying a twelve-year old over his shoulder like a hunk of meat, giggling about how he was going to 'enjoy' her! I couldn't help myself, and I...I tore his throat out with my claws."

Axl gasped. He thought that his sweet tempered Sunako could have ever used her bare hands in such a way. Sure, he knew she could kill, but like that?

Sunako buried her face in his neck, shivering.

He hugged her tightly. "Shh, it's ok." he soothed, rubbing circles on her back. "You saved the girl, he would have hurt her worse than death her if you hadn't."

"I still killed a sentient being Axl, I let my feral side take over!"

She started to cry, sobbing into his chest and soaking his robe with tears.

Axl sighed, picked her up, and carried her back to the bed. He got them both comfortable and held her close as she cried herself back to sleep.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

Encounters of the Bad Kind

Axl woke to a kiss, and the sweet smell he identified as Sunako's.

Opening his eyes he found the girl hovering over him with a wry smile on her lips. Axl couldn't help but claim those lips in another kiss.

Breaking apart, he chuckled. "So, why exactly are you so affectionate with me all of a sudden?" he asked jokingly. "I can't imagine why you'd jump me in the shower after I got all sweaty."

Sunako purred, straddling his lap again as he sat up. "I told you, I couldn't help it. You always smelled good, but then, it was just so much better and stronger after all that training, a good sign of a strong male."

Axl blushed a light pink. "So you think I'm sexy when I'm sweaty? That's different."

"To a human maybe."

"True I guess." he chuckled nervously. "But you've smelled me all sweaty and worn out before, why jump me now?"

She giggled. "Kitsune Vixens are more receptive to musk at certain times, more...easily aroused you could say." she said, tracing mindless patterns on his bare chest. "Maidens are usually kept in isolation from unmated males at those times until we're physically and mentally mature enough to take a mate, higher ladies kept in longer until we're permitted to entertain suitors."

"Oh? What does that mean for me?"

Sunako smiled. "Just that you have my attention more than you did before. I've always liked you, but I never thought of you sexually before."

She said that last bit with a twitch of her tail up the inside of his bare thigh, making him gasp. "Tell me, have you been entertaining...certain fantasies in your mind?"

Axl blushed even redder. "Um, yes?"

She raised a brow in a questioning look. "Why?"

"Look, I'm not a pervert or anything, but all those rumors? Well, let's just say they put some images in my head, I couldn't help it! And a lot of older hunters keep sneaking porn onto my datapads! They think it's funny!" he stammered out. "One group of them hardwired one of my training sims with it, one that was cerebral-integrative, you literally _can't _look away or even close your eyes!"

Sunako looked confused. "Why would they do that?"

"Cause I'm the youngest A-class hunter in the whole organization that's why! Older reploids get obsessed with sex, and while I physically look like a teenager, I'm only four years old!"

"Well, you don't act like a child."

"Damn straight! I've been holding my own on missions when they were still learning to walk at that age! Just because I'm not obsessed with sex like they are doesn't mean I'm a child!"

"Your age _is _what you make it to be I suppose. If anything, you're more mature than them, I smell a bit of jealousy floating around." Sunako mused, then smiled a feral grin.

"Axl, are you interested in learning how my Celestial Brush works?"

"Eh?"

Several squadrons found themselves the new target of the mystery prankster. Over the course of the morning and early afternoon mysterious explosions, disappearing objects, and sudden new paintjobs plagued each victim, as well as incriminating words stamped on faces, backs, and helmets.

Zero was laughing his head off at each new victim he saw, especially at the soldiers from his own unit.

X had a hard time keeping a straight face, struggling between frowning and laughing hysterically.

Commander Signas gave no outward response, but that was because he had a damn good poker face.

And Axl? He was nowhere to be found.

Late afternoon the incidents dwindled down to nothing, and most reploids could now walk about in peace without the fear of being ambushed by the mystery prankster.

Axl and Sunako came into the entrance hall from outside, the redhead dressed in civilian clothes (an outfit Sunako made him), with a red shirt, dark slacks, and a jean jacket, loaded down with shopping bags from the local fabric store, Suanko by his side, looking cheerful in a pale green yukata with an orange sash.

Zero and X looked up at their entrance.

"So that's where they went." said Zero. "Guess they missed all the fun."

"Must you call it that?" X groaned.

"Come on, it was funny and you know it."

"That doesn't mean I approve."

"Whatever then, no wonder Alia's always so frustrated with you. If you were any more tight-laced you'd be a freaking _corset._"

"Hey!"

Axl heard the whole exchange and laughed. "Hey X, Zero, what's up? Something happen?"

Zero grinned, snickering. "Ghost Prankster strikes again, hit up a whole mess of guys while you were out."

Axl's face fell. "You're kidding."

"Nope, but I got you pictures."

The redhead beamed. "Awesome! You're the best!"

"No sweat kid."

Suanko giggled as Zero handed her a datapad since Axl's hands were full, and started toggling through the pictures for him.

The group was laughing over the pictures and Zero's commentary when Suanko stiffened suddenly.

"What is it?" asked X, concerned at her blankly stunned expression.

"Sunako?"

The blankness on her face quickly morphed to wide-eyed terror.

"I...I smell blood, fresh blood!"

She didn't have any time to clarify before an energy chain looped suddenly over her neck and yanked her backwards with a scream. A male voice yelled in triumph. "I have it! Experiment V9-01!"

A group of white-coated human men stood in the entrance hall, the tallest holding the chain and Sunako in his grasp.

It took X and Zero's combined efforts to keep Axl from lunging forward and killing them all. The redhead recognized them instantly as the scientists Suanko had escaped from, all men older than forty, wearing white coats and drenched in the stench of blood.

The leader of the men, a fairly tall human with graying hair and a jaw you could crack rocks on, gave X an oily smile.

"Ah, X, is it? That reploid hunter? So kind of you to capture our project for us, you've done us a great service. I am director Erik Dodgeson, head of Second Aperture Genetics Corp."

The newly identified Director Dodgeson extended a hand in greeting to X, only to retract it when X did not take it.

"Not into handshakes are you? No matter, we have our subject, we will be going now."

The giant man pulled hard on the chain holding Sunako, making her whimper in pain as he wound it down around her arms and torso as well.

Axl stepped forward. "What do you have to prove she is your property?" he asked in a low, dangerous voice.

"What business is it to you boy?" Dodgeson snapped. "This is the product of twenty years of research, the fusion of human and animal genetics in a stable lifeform!"

Axl's face went blank. "Are you going to rape her like all your other victims? Experiment on any bastard children she has? Destroy even more innocent lives that don't even have a chance to live? How many women do you have locked away in cages like animals, women and girls that you torture for you sick pleasure?"

Zero's expression went icy, as did X's. "Axl, you know what you're accusing this man of?"

Axl didn't turn to face either of his mentors. "Every crime of his and his colleagues that Sunako told me of." he said. "If I invoke Hunter's Clause thirty-seven, will the two of you support me?"

"Thirty-seven?" asked Zero, puzzled. Then he remembered exactly what clause in the Hunter's code his young friend was referring to.

"You bet, fire away!" said the blonde with a predatory grin.

Dodgeson sneered. "How cute, the boy thinks himsel-"

A bright flash interrupted the man, and in a second Axl stood in full armor, pointing the business end of one of his guns in Dodgeson's face.

"I, Axl, special-class A level Hunter of Special Unit 00, invoke emergency protective custody over Suanko Inari, on grounds that present persons under lead of Erik Dodgeson pose immediate and severe harm to her and others in this vicinity in accordance with Hunter Code Law 37." Axl barked out, his voice ringing through the entrance hall and leaving no one ignorant of his words. "Also in accordance I ask that Erik Dodgeson and company be taken into lawful custody on grounds of charges stated as thus; multiple counts kidnaping, multiple counts rape, multiple counts illegal human experimentation, multiple counts child abuse, multiple counts manslaughter, multiple counts rape of a minor, multiple counts of assault, and multiple counts of human slave trafficking. Do my fellow hunters acknowledge the charges?"

There was a near roar of assent, every hunter, navigator, and other human in the room gave their verbal agreement. A group of hunters stepped forward, each holding restraint cuffs.

"Then they shall remain in Hunter custody until officers of the Giga City Police Force are able to take proper lawful custody, at which time each shall be read their Miranda Rights." said the lead enforcer, snapping the links of the restraints viscously. "Your charges of the accused are heard and acknowledged by myself my unit."

Axl gave the hunter a grateful nod and turned his attention back to Dodgeson, taking in a deep breath to steady his hand.

"You, Erik Dodgeson, will tell your lackey to release Sunako, or Three Laws be damned I _will _shoot you. If you do not comply with Hunter Code Law procedure and resist, you and your fellows will be considered an immediate threat to any and all other humans in this vicinity and be dealt with accordingly, do you understand and comply?"

It was a loaded question, with Axl's gun in the man's now sweating face. He signaled frantically to the man holding Sunako and he released her, letting her dart across the room to Zero's arms, Axl being busy.

"Fellow hunters, please take these men into custody and alert the authorities. Sunako Inari is now in my protective custody."

Axl dropped his aim on Dodgeson as a hunter cuffed the man and made a sharp about-face, taking Suanko into an embrace when she tackled him.

X and Zero exchanged a heavy glance. Neither of them had ever seen Axl so intense or formal. The redhead had cited the Code Law perfectly, and was obviously quite capable of killing the human man without remorse.

Commander Signas approached them. "Unit Commanders X and Zero, what is going on here."

It was a command, not a question. Talk, now.

"It was my idea sir."

Axl startled them when he spoke up, his voice still containing the deadly edge that he had threatened Dodgeson with. "Sunako told me about the times they had captured her, about their captives, the rapes, everything. I'm asking you to formally request the FBI to search their laboratories, now."

Signas stood with a cold look in his eyes. "How many captives are we talking about?"

"Dozens, anywhere from the age of three to thirty, at least two Second Aperture Genetics laboratories have underground holding areas, one near Beijing and the second not far from Narita."

"I will make the call. You, X, and Zero take that young lady elsewhere in the base, she is in your custody Axl."

"Will do sir."

X and Zero escorted Axl and Sunako back to his quarters, where they collapsed together in his armchair.

Zero took off his helmet and scratched his head. "Either of you mind telling us what's going on?"

Sunako shivered, not answering, but Axl raised his head. "Sunako told me about what happened, when she was captured and everything. I didn't think those creeps would show up so soon though..."

"I have to say kid, neither did I. You just about scared the pants off X here when you started talking like that and waved that gun in Dodgeson's face. Were you really going to shoot him?"

Axl licked his lips nervously, glancing up at X. "I...I think I was." he said slowly. "I was so mad at what he'd done, just how many innocent people he'd have to had hurt to smell like so much blood, he was drenched in that smell. It took everything I had not to pull the trigger, to keep myself from killing him..."

He shuddered, hugging Sunako closer to him and burying his face in her hair.

Zero laid a comforting hand on his protege's shoulder. "It's gonna be ok kid, those guys'll either be facing life in prison or the firing line. Why don't you take off your armor and change into some more comfortable clothes, I'll bring you some dinner ok?"

"Thanks Zero."

X stood by the door. "Hurry back Zero, I'll stay with them."

"Thanks, be back soon."

That evening Zero camped out in Axl's room to keep an extra eye out, letting the emotionally exhausted pair sleep off some of the excitement. The blonde veteran couldn't help but smile at the way they slept snuggled up together, perfectly at home in each other's presence.

He felt good for his friend, his little brother, to have found someone he could be so comfortable with. The young redhead had issues with being touched, keeping everyone save Zero at an arm's distance. He didn't always react violently, but he always made a point of not shaking hands and worming his way out of embraces or other contact. His comrades in Unit 00 quickly learned that the youngest special-class hunter did not like being touched without reason after he drew his guns on them several times for patting him on the back.

It must have had something to do with a lack of friendly touches during his time in RedAlert, or something during his time with his creator that was wiped from his conscious memory.

Either way, he was happy for Axl. Maybe now he'd start to feel more at home at base.


End file.
